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Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Ep. 182: Chelsea Bieker (Author of Madwoman) + Book Recommendations

Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Sarah Dickinson

Bookrecommendations, Bookpodcasts, Sarahsbookshelvespodcast, Sarahsbookshelveslivepodcast, Sarahsbookshelveslive, Bookpodcast, Literarypodcast, Whatshouldiread, Arts, Bookreviewpodcast, Reading, Readingpodcast, Books, Sarahsbookshelves

4.9 • 732 Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2024

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Episode 182, author Chelsea Bieker discusss her new novel, Madwoman, with Sarah. Chelsea shares how her own childhood inspired the fictional characters in her book and what parts of the book differ from her own experience. They talk about the trajectory of this intense and personal novel that began as a “funny little book about motherhood” and morphed into a story about trauma and abuse.  Plus, Chelsea shares her book recommendations.

This post contains affiliate links through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!).

CLICK HERE for the full episode Show Notes on the blog.

Highlights

  • Books by Chelsea Bieker: Madwoman (2024), Heartbroke (2022), and Godshot (2020)
  • A spoiler-free overview of Madwoman.
  • How this story transformed from a “funny little book about motherhood” to an intense story about trauma and abuse.
  • The ways Chelsea’s childhood experiences and memories shaped her story of Clove.
  • The parts of Madwoman that were pulled directly from her own life and those that weren’t.
  • Exploring the publisher’s statement that Madwoman would be Chelsea’s breakout.
  • Conversations with her mom and dad about the book’s story.
  • The relationship between Madwoman, Godshot, and Chelsea’s current work in progress.

Chelsea’s Book Recommendations [46:01]

Two OLD Books She Loves

Two NEW Books She Loves

One Book She DIDN’T Love

One NEW RELEASE She’s Excited About

Last 5-Star Book Chelsea Read

About Chelsea Bieker

Website | Instagram | X | Facebook | Substack

Chelsea Bieker is the author of three books, most recently the nationally bestselling novel, Madwoman, a Book of the Month club pick the New York Times calls “brilliant in its depiction of the long shadows cast by domestic violence.” Her first novel, Godshot, was long-listed for The Center For Fiction’s First Novel Prize and named a Barnes & Noble Pick of the Month. Her story collection, Heartbroke, won the California Book Award and was a New York Times “Best California Book of 2022.” Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Marie Claire UK, People, The Cut, Wall Street Journal, No Tokens, and others. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, as well as residencies from MacDowell and Tin House. Raised in Hawai’i and California, she now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live.

0:11.9

I'm your host, Sarah Dickinson.

0:13.8

Join me every other week as we get real and sometimes a bit snarky about books and reading.

0:19.2

Let's get rolling.

0:20.7

Before we get to today's guest,

0:22.2

I wanted to let you all know that our 2025 Rock Your Reading tracker will be going live on Wednesday,

0:28.3

November 27th, which is in two weeks. Just like last year, the tracker will be available

0:33.4

exclusively to our $7 per month Superstars patrons.

0:38.5

It will not be available for individual purchase.

0:41.3

Though you can certainly sign up to be a patron for one month to get the tracker.

0:44.9

And hopefully after seeing all the great content we offer in our Patreon community,

0:49.3

including tons of bonus podcast episodes, you'll decide to stick around.

0:53.8

And I think many people will.

0:55.3

We are doing some really great stuff over in the Patreon community. And I'm getting great feedback

1:01.2

on it all the time. So 2025 is our eighth annual reading tracker, which is absolutely crazy

1:07.8

to think about. We were one of the first people to do a reading tracker like this

1:12.1

and extend it to the level of statistics that we track and the way that we think about tracking

1:21.6

reading as far as measuring your success rate with particular kinds of books, tracking your

1:26.6

recommendation sources.

1:27.8

We were the first people to be doing that stuff.

1:29.9

So our tracker is in Microsoft Excel, but it also can be uploaded to and used in Google

1:35.6

sheets.

...

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